A reader writes:

In light of The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, this story from the Boston Globe may be of interest: a husband who spent most of his three years of marriage caring for his terminally ill wife dies two days before she does.

It’s staggering, this account. Look what love can do! From the Boston Globe story:

When Neil Carruthers married Tina Nedelcu three years ago, he knew her funeral might arrive sooner than either wanted. She had already been treated for brain cancer, and had learned anew to talk and walk and coax her lovely voice to sing again in church.

For some, illness puts love on hold. Not Neil. “He said, ‘Mom, you don’t marry someone for their pedigree and you don’t marry them for their health history,’ ” his mother, Rosanne, recalled. “He told me, ‘Mom, whatever time we have, I want to spend with her.’ ”

Nine months after they married in 2010, the cancer returned. Early this year they moved in with Neil’s parents in Stoneham, and he stopped working so he could tend to all Tina’s needs. When she could no longer speak, he sat by the bed and read from a Bible whose passages she had highlighted so brightly and frequently it was as if Scripture glowed from every page.

“I know he was helping to prepare her,” Rosanne said, “but for me as a mother, as a Christian, it was as if she was preparing him as well.”